Realising Recovery and Social Inclusion.™

A 3-day course for 6-15 people. (2-day version and refresher courses are also available.)

Executive Summary:

'Recovery' is an idea that gets people understandably excited. For example, this is what the Sainsbury Centre for mental health said:

"Recovery is an idea whose time has come. At its heart is a set of values about a person's right to build a meaningful life for themselves, with or without the continuing presence of mental health symptoms. Recovery is based on ideas of self-determination and self-management. It emphasises the importance of 'hope' in sustaining motivation and supporting expectations of an individually fulfilled life."

And here is a similarly inspiration quote from Roberts, G & Wolfson, P. in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment: “Redefinition of recovery as a process of personal discovery, of how to live (and live well) with enduring symptoms and vulnerabilities opens the possibility of recovery to all ….This reconceptualisation is personally empowering, raising realistic hope for a better life alongside whatever remains of illness and vulnerability”.

What Realising Recovery and Social Inclusion aims to do is to present you with a similarly inspiring presentation that educates, develops skills, and motivates you to use them enthusiastically in your own work.

Day one: The History and Philosophy.

Definition and Description. Recovery may be seen as more of a philosophy than a model, requiring that "we regain personal power and a valued place in our communities."

The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health document: Making Recovery a Reality. Andresen et al's five stages of recovery. The importance of work and employment. Shepherd's ten top tips, 2007.

Components of the process of recovery. Having hope; Re-establishment of a positive identity; Building a meaningful life; Taking responsibility and control. The importance of optimism.

Social Inclusion. "Increasingly, services aim to go beyond traditional clinical care and help patients back into mainstream society, re-defining recovery to incorporate quality of life - a job, a decent place to live, friends and a social life."

Professional Qualities. All the sophisticated concepts, and all the literature in the world, are as nothing unless the professional has the right personal qualities.

The relationship. Roberts & Wolfson (2004) have characterised this as a shift from staff who are seen as remote, in a position of expertise and 'authority', to people who behave more like a personal coach or trainer: 'On tap, not on top.' Repper & Perkins.

Day Two: 'Operationalising' the Recovery model … techniques to make it happen.

Positive questions. A positive question has two key qualities: It focuses on positive behaviour, not negative. So long as you can answer it, the answer will necessarily eliminate the negative behaviour.

Radical Validation Plus. People who are good at validating are liked by their friends and influential with their clients.

Socratic Dialogue. Asking questions that help a person to think things through the way they want to.

Planning and achieving a good Future. We need not be so perturbed about our past that it disturbs our present, nor so wrapped up in the present that we neglect our future. The RAID Ladder of Achievement.

Decisional Balance. Helping the person to decide what they want, and to act on their decision. Putting forward your own suggestions. Encouragement and support. The two traps.

The role of a written action-plan.

Practical Support. Advice, 'sounding-board', and emotional support are all helpful, but so is practical support. And service users value it very highly.

Noticing positive results is good but not good enough. We also need to know what to do to help people achieve what they want again, and again.

Day Three: Constructing a full Recovery care plan and measuring progress and results.

Measures of Recovery. Recovery is more than philosophy, it is about results. To have clear evidence of progress helps both the service-user and the professional. In this section we review four measures.

Producing a Recovery-Oriented Care Plan. Applying the Recovery principles to producing a Care Plan for a prepared case example.

Producing a Recovery-Oriented Care Plan, 2. Applying the Recovery principles to producing a usable Care Plan for a service-user you know.

What this course will do for you:

You will have the satisfying feeling of knowing about 'Recovery': its history and philosophy. Knowing what others say about it and how it came about. Knowing that it' not just about 'cure' but about leading a rewarding life, and social inclusion too, and just what that means and how it can be achieved.

You will know which of your own personal qualities are important, and which elements of 'professionalism' are perhaps unhelpful in the Recovery context. You will have a clear concept for how to collaborate in producing recovery.

You will know how to generate optimism and helpful action for those you work with.

You will know how to increase the 'can-do' spirit in others in a way that makes them feel good about you and, more importantly, about themselves.

You will know how to help people 'think things through' so they really know which direction they want to head in and are keen to get there. You will know how to help people 'stay on the track they want' and to be hopeful about the future.

You will be able to help people form a real plan that they can act on and be pleased they did.

You will know how to help people genuinely, realistically and ethically, when they hit difficulties.

You will know how to produce a proper, down to earth, Recovery-oriented care plan.

You will know that Recovery is more than a philosophy, it is about real results, and you will know how to measure those results in a way that all concerned can see them and be pleased and impressed by them.

Who should attend:

Everybody who works in mental health and related areas.

What you receive as a result of attending the training:

You will be registered as having attended the course, thereby gaining APT's Level 1 accreditation, and receive a certificate to this effect. The accreditation gives you access to online resources associated with the course.

Your registration lasts indefinitely, and your accreditation lasts for 3 years and is renewable by sitting an online refresher which also upgrades your accreditation to APT Level 2 if you are successful in the associated online exam.

Your accreditation is given value by the fact of over 100,000 people having attended APT training. See APT accreditation for full details.

How can I access this training?

Option 1: We come and run the course in your organisation:

We bring this 3-day course to your own organisation for a fixed, all-inclusive fee of £4,165 plus VAT and up to 15 people can attend. You can organise as many courses as you need, to cover the numbers you want to.

There is also a 2-day version available at £3,050 plus VAT inclusive for 6-15 delegates.

If you or a colleague are a senior professional (e.g. consultant psychologist) and have a talent for communication and teaching, then you are welcome to apply to become an APT-accredited tutor. You could then tutor the course - or your chosen modules from it - in your own organisation, under license.

This is not only a highly appropriate use of senior professionals, but it also saves your organisation the tutor-component of the fee (around 50%) each time you run it or your chosen modules.

To see the full benefits of this and to see whether you are eligible, click the button:

Downloadable information sheet:

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As a bona fide APT event, this course automatically has accreditation from The Association for Psychological Therapies. This means (i) that it contains the right amount of relevant information for its duration, and (ii) the information is presented in an engaging way, and in a way that will make it likely to be used after the course. APT verifies the accreditation by publishing the delegates' average ratings of relevance and presentation-quality for all its accredited courses. The accreditation is given value by over 100,000 professionals having attended APT courses.

Feedback Ratings.

We continuously monitor the quality of our training by obtaining feedback on the two key scales of relevance and presentation from every course delegate. Below are the average ratings for the last ten runnings of this course.

Average Presentation rating: 98%

Average Relevance rating: 97%

*These statistics were last updated in April 2017.

Written Feedback.

APT prides itself on the feedback we receive about our courses. Below are just some of the great comments the Realising Recovery and Social Inclusion™ course has received.

"Amazing, the best training I have ever received in the NHS. A passionate presenter who has inspired me. Thank you.”

“An inspiring workshop that reinvigorated my belief in the recovery approach. All three days were an amazing opportunity to not only recognise how much of our practice currently accords with the model but also to draw upon the presenter's impressive knowledge and enthusiasm. Thank you.”